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Kia

Kia Motors
기아자동차
Public
Traded as KRX:
Industry Automotive
Founded December 1944; 72 years ago (1944-12) as Kyungsung Precision Industry
Headquarters Seoul, South Korea
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Hyoung-Keun (Hank) Lee, Vice Chairman and CEO
Peter Schreyer, Chief Design Officer
Products Automobiles
Luxury cars
Commercial vehicles
Production output
Increase 2,827,321 units (2013)
Revenue IncreaseUS$46.9 billion (2013)
Increase US$ 3.1 billion (2013)
Increase US$ 3.8 billion (2013)
Total assets Increase US$ 35.6 billion (2013)
Total equity Increase US$ 19.9 billion (2013)
Number of employees
33,255 (as of December 2013)
Parent Hyundai Motor Group
Website www.kia.com
Kia Motors
KIA logo.svg
Hangul 기아자동차
Hanja 起亞自動車
Revised Romanization Gia Jadongcha
McCune–Reischauer Kia Chadongch'a

Kia Motor Corporation (Hangul기아자동차; Hanja起亞自動車, IPA: [ki.a], literally "Kia automobile"; stylized as KIΛ), headquartered in Seoul, is South Korea's second-largest automobile manufacturer, following the Hyundai Motor Company, with sales of over 3.3 million vehicles in 2015. As of December 2015, the Kia Motor Corporation is 33.88% minority owned by the Hyundai Motor Company totaling just over $6 billion USD. Kia Motor Corporation is a minority owner of more than twenty Hyundai subsidiaries ranging from 4.9% up to 45.37% totaling more than $8.3 billion USD.

According to Kia Motors, the name "Kia" derives from the Sino-Korean characters ki (起, "to come out") and a (亞, which stands for (East) Asia), it is roughly translated as "to come out of the east."

Kia was founded in December 1944 as Kyungsung Precision Industry, a manufacturer of steel tubing and bicycle parts, eventually producing Korea's first domestic bicycle, the Samchully, in 1951. In 1952, Kyungsung Precision Industry changed its name to Kia Industries, and later built Honda-licensed small motorcycles (starting in 1957), Mazda-licensed trucks (1962) and cars (1974). The company opened its first integrated automotive assembly plant in 1973, the Sohari Plant. Kia built the small Brisa range of cars until 1981, when production came to an end after the new military dictator Chun Doo-hwan enforced industry consolidation. This forced Kia to give up passenger cars and focus entirely on light trucks. Prior to the forced 1981 shutdown, Kia rounded out its passenger car lineup with two other foreign models assembled under license: the Fiat 132 and the Peugeot 604.


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